


1/2 Cap Laundry Detergent (1/2 Cap Grubsauce)

by plasticdaisy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Meteorstuck, POV First Person, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Romance, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21547072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasticdaisy/pseuds/plasticdaisy
Summary: Life on the meteor leaves both Dave and Karkat itching to piss each other off just for fun, and a little prank war over the laundry machine never hurt anybody (except maybe their respective wardrobes).For my boyfriend.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 1
Kudos: 62





	1/2 Cap Laundry Detergent (1/2 Cap Grubsauce)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KittyMotor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyMotor/gifts).



I reach across the top of the laundry machine, hooking my hands on the other side and stretching. The back of it is kind of greasy, and when I pull back, I wipe my hands on my pantlegs.

Gross. Guess these will go in the next load.

Ironically, I’m not sure how much time is left on the machine, but it’s not like my aspect gives me a sense of when my clothes are done in the wash. I’ve never really been all that good with this kind of this stuff – I either show up so early I have to leave and come back a couple times before its done, or I forget entirely and have a stack of mildew-scented clothes sitting at the bottom of the washer for like three days until someone else using the machine reminds me I was trying to do my laundry.

The bottom line is that I’m an impatient fuck.

Which is why the laundry machine wasn’t really the spot I was expecting Karkat to execute his next prank, considering there’s a chance I’ll never even see it and just run the laundry again in a few days. Maybe he felt like today I’d be bored enough to actually show up, because he’s standing in the doorway to the laundry room when I turn away from the still-humming machine.

“Oh, hey Kit-kat,” I take a step back from the washer, absentmindedly picking at the black nail polish on my left pointer-finger. Karkat painted them, and he’ll paint them again for me – I feel kind of bad about always picking it off, but he doesn’t seem to mind. It gives us something to do, and we’re practically attached at the hip by this point.

Which is why it _isn’t weird_ that he’s standing in the doorway watching me wash my clothes – at least, it shouldn’t be, but with the way he’s leaning against the doorframe with a smug look spread across his face is the weird part.

“Hey Dave,” he replies, crossing his arms across his chest.

Ah, fuck.

“What did you do?” I turn around, whipping my head to focus my gaze between the running laundry machine and my best-friend-sort-of-boyfriend-labels-between-species-are-hard, who is raising his eyebrows at me. Oh, he’s loving this. This is totally payback for something I did earlier this week, but in all fairness, that was payback for something he did, but maybe I started it _before that_ –

Prank wars are intense, man. But with Karkat, it’s not like it isn’t also fun. We’re both assholes and we’re both bored, and with that we _make_ fun for ourselves when we don’t feel like popping in a movie we’ve seen eight trillion times already, or ‘enjoying each other’s company’, as nice as that can be when we feel like it.

“Dude, what’d you do?” I repeat, walking back over to the laundry machine. Like magic, it wails, announcing it’s done throwing my clothes around in whatever Karkat threw in there while I wasn’t looking.

My brow furrowing, I walk over to the machine, looking around it to make sure there isn’t something I haven’t noticed. Karkat is now standing inside the room, watching me intently from beside the dryer. I can see a smile threatening his cheeks. He already knows he’s won, otherwise he’d look worried. And he’s not saying anything about it, either. Whatever he did is just cooking in there, and I don’t have a choice but to face whatever it is. _God damnit_.

I look down at the machine, taking a deep breath and shaking my head before I swing the top open. The smell hits me in an instant, and I gag, covering my mouth and taking a step back from the machine.

“Oh, fuck,” I yell from behind my hand, and Karkat doubles over, finally letting himself laugh. Even if it’s at my own expense, I always love to hear it – he deserves to laugh more often than he does, and seeing that firework of happiness explode across his face always makes me smile, even if this time I feel like I might be fucking sick into my laundry.

He catches his breath, looking up at me, and I can see the lines in his skin as he smiles – his face is so expressive, a Shakespearean play of emotions constantly painted across his features, and even when he’s done laughing I can see he’s holding back another round because I can see it in his face.

He’s fucking cute, and it’s annoying, because I want to be mad.

“What _is_ that?” I ask him, my voice slightly muffled as I move my hand from covering my mouth to plugging my nose.

“It’s – it’s grubsauce,” Karkat wheezes, laughing again, “god, your fucking face!”

“Oh, come on, why is it always grubsauce?”

“Because you always look like that when you smell it!” Karkat wipes his eyes, resting his hands on his knees as he catches his breath from laughing again, “oh my god, this is priceless.”

I run my hands down my face, groaning.

“That smell never comes ouuuut,” I lament, glancing back at my mess of grubsauce-stained laundry, “I’m gonna have to throw those away.”

“Totally worth it,” Karkat shakes his head, “I don’t even feel bad. You’ve ruined so many of my clothes, you asshole. I don’t even care.”

I roll my eyes but can’t help but smile at him as he looks at me with such bright eyes. I’ll just have to get him back with something that’ll ruin his clothes just as bad – I have to give it to him, this was a good one. He might almost always use grubsauce when he pranks me, but he knows how to use it, I’ll give him that.

Putting it in my clothes, in my pillow, in my shampoo, in my waffle-mix, in a smoothie he so _kindly_ made me once – the guy knows I hate grubsauce, and I respect that. You don’t need a whole arsenal of weapons to take down an enemy you know the weakness of.

That being said, even he has his grubsauce, if you know what I mean.

I wait until the next time he’s doing his laundry, but unlike him, the whole lying-in-wait ordeal where he fills my detergent with grubsauce and then watches for me to walk into the room isn’t my style. I just wait until he walks in to put in his clothes, following him in my pajamas sipping a Monster.

“Oh, god,” Karkat pauses before he dumps his clothes into the washer, “what did you do?”

“Nothin’,” I respond nonchalantly, throwing my hands up in innocence, “I’m just bored, man, I thought once you threw that in we could watch a movie.”

Karkat narrows his eyes at me and puts down his load of laundry on top of the dryer to inspect the washing machine. Sure enough, I didn’t do anything – not yet. He can inspect the washer all he wants before he throws his clothes in, because he won’t find anything. I’m too lazy to be that creative.

“… You really didn’t do anything?”

“Nope.”

Karkat glances around again, shakes his head, and mumbles something about me being insufferable and needy – before dumping his clothes into the washer. He puts in the detergent (and a fuck ton of fabric softener, because once he found out what that was he uses so much of it I’m pretty sure it would give me an allergic reaction to wear some of his clothes), and as he goes to close the top to the washer, I stop it with my hand.

He turns and looks at me, opening his mouth, and as I meet his gaze, I dump the whole of my can of Monster into his laundry.

As the rest of it trickles out on top of his mass of sweaters, I watch his expression process what just happened like a buffering screen, before he lets out a loud _screech_ and slams the washer shut. He makes the _best_ sounds.

I cover my mouth, laughing and dropping my now empty can onto the floor as he gives me a death glare for ruining his clothes. Oh my god, the look on his face. He felt so many emotions at once. It was priceless.

“That – was so fucking funny,” I manage between breathy wheezes.

I make a surprised noise as Karkat picks me up by the collar – he might be shorter than me, but the guy’s a brick house of strength – and slams me against the wall.

“You piece of absolute shit,” he threatens, “I can’t – oh my god!”

I give him a smug expression at first, but I can’t help how I laugh again, just shaking with it against the wall as Karkat has me pinned there. He rolls his eyes, realizing I know that he won’t hurt me, and drops me back down.

“I guess that was payback for the grubsauce.”

“Damn right. Movie?”

“Get out,” Karkat points at the door, glaring down at his laundry and seemingly pondering if running it would make it worse.

“… We can watch something you like?” I offer, leaning against the doorway. Karkat visibly sighs, shaking his head.

“What the fuck am I gonna do with you?”

“Make out with me, I was hoping?”

“Then why am _I_ picking the movie?”

“… Because I thought it would get you to come make out with me.”

Karkat turns around, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Make a snack that _doesn’t_ include Monster and put on something dumb by the time I get back to my room from cleaning up this fucking mess, and maybe I’ll consider it. Also, ew, brush your fucking teeth. I don’t wanna taste it.”

I grin.

“It’s a deal.”


End file.
